


where you lay

by angstandcaffeine



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Sharing a Bed, set vaguely during cold winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 07:05:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18068840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angstandcaffeine/pseuds/angstandcaffeine
Summary: Throndir was finally almost asleep when he heard a knock on his door.





	where you lay

Throndir was finally almost asleep when he heard a knock on his door.

“Hello?” he said, sitting up.

“Hey.” It was Ephrim, voice low as he poked his head in. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, of course.” Throndir moved over in the bed, gesturing for him to sit. He did. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” Ephrim ran his hand through his hair. He looked like a mess, honestly. “I just… Can I sleep here? Tonight?”

“Absolutely.”

“Great,” he said, “let me go grab a blanket and-”

Throndir reached for his arm to stop him. “Oh no, you don’t have to, you can sleep in the bed.” He thanked the darkness of the night for covering the deep flush on his cheeks. “I mean, if you want, of course. But the floor is probably really cold.”

“Oh.” Ephrim seemed surprised by the offer. “Okay, sure.”

He crawled under the blankets, settling close to Throndir. These were university bunks, after all, the bed wasn’t exactly huge.

“Is everything okay?” Throndir asked again.

“Yeah, I just-” He cut himself off, took a deep breath. “Sometimes the quiet of this winter is nice. It’s calm, it’s relaxing, but… sometimes it’s too quiet.” Ephrim adjusted the blankets, and Throndir realized he was doing so with a gloved hand.

“Yeah,” Throndir sighed, staring up at the ceiling. “Yeah, I get that.” He looked over at Ephrim, trying to formulate words or a question about his hand, but everything seemed too nosy or pushy. Ephrim laid on his side gazing out the window. In the dim light of the moons, his sharp edges felt soft. His jaw wasn’t so hard set, and his lips fell slack instead of being pulled into a smirk or pushed into a grimace. Throndir wished for a moment that he could see Ephrim like this more often. But he knew what Ephrim thought about when it was too quiet, and he figured it wasn’t likely.

After a little while, Ephrim rolled back over, facing Throndir. “What are you gonna do about Benjamin and Blue J?” he murmured, sleepy.

Throndir laughed a little, surprised. “What do you mean?”

“I told you, they’ve been sneaking off to smoke halfling pipeweed. They’re growing into quite the troublemakers.”

“And I told you that I’m sure they’re not. They’re good kids.”

Ephrim’s only response was to cock an eyebrow.

“Well, regardless, I am neither of their fathers, so.”

“So they’ll listen to you about it.”

Throndir frowned. “Can I be honest with you?”

Ephrim reached out, just brushing Throndir’s shoulder. “Always.”

Throndir sighed. “I don’t know _shit_ about halfling pipeweed.”

Ephrim laughed, covering his mouth to avoid waking up the others.

Throndir rolled his eyes. “We didn’t have it in Auniq when I was going through my rebellious teenage years!”

“That’s fair,” Ephrim said, still laughing. “Do you wanna learn about it?” He winked, and Throndir tried his best to ignore what that did to his chest.

Now Throndir had the giggles too. “Are you serious?”

“My teenage years were spent traveling Hieron. I know about a lot of things, Throndir.”

“Oh right, I forgot you were a prince,” he teased.

For a moment, it looked like Ephrim was blushing. But of course that couldn’t be true, because Ephrim never blushed.

“God, we need to go to bed. We’re gossiping like two ten-year-olds at a sleepover.” A blank expression sat on Throndir’s face. “Oh no, don’t tell me you also didn’t have slumber parties in Auniq.”

“Now, I’m just guessing what that phrase means, but everybody sleeping in the same room is extremely common in the middle of the fucking Erasure.”

Ephrim hummed. “That makes sense.” He moved a little closer to Throndir. “It is much warmer like this.”

A million thoughts ran through Throndir’s head. Before he could stop all of them, one made its way out of his mouth: “Are you cold?”

“No more than usual. I’m just… I feel like I still haven’t gotten used to being cold.”

Oh, right. This winter was new for everyone, but he had forgotten just how new this was for Ephrim.

“It’s alright in here, though,” he continued, eyes fluttering shut. They were so close, Throndir could count his eyelashes if he wanted to. And he might have, if he hadn’t been so tired. As he drifted off, it sounded like Ephrim had whispered something to him, but he wasn’t able to catch it before falling asleep.

He woke up the next morning to the feeling of skin on skin. In their sleep, they had closed the gap between them. Ephrim’s forehead rested in the crook of his neck, and he had wrapped his hand in Throndir’s shirt, holding tight. For his part, Throndir at some point in the night had draped his arm over Ephrim, hand on the small of his back.

He froze, trying to figure out how he could get out of this position without waking up Ephrim. He slowly began to move his arm off of him.

“G’morning,” Ephrim muttered, not moving. Shit, he was already awake- barely, it seemed, but enough to recognize what was happening. “Where are you going?” His fingers closed tighter around Throndir’s shirt.

In a moment of low defenses, or perhaps being too groggy to fully understand what he was doing, Throndir asked, “Do you want me to stay?”

Ephrim looked up at him. “Are you really asking me whether or not you can be in your own bed?”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

A blush formed on Ephrim’s cheeks- undeniable now, in the light of the morning. “Do you want to stay?”

More than anything, he did. So Throndir put his arm back around him. “We don’t have anywhere we have to be,” he grinned.

“That’s a lie.” Ephrim pressed his head back into Throndir’s shoulder. He wondered if Ephrim could hear the flurry of his heart in his chest.

Throndir groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

“Okay, forget I said anything.” He couldn’t see Ephrim’s face, but he knew he was smiling. “I’m going back to sleep, since we definitely don’t need to leave this bed today.”

“That sounds great, actually,” and before he could stop himself, Throndir punctuated his words with a kiss to his forehead.

Ephrim didn’t move, at first, and Throndir was sure he had made a grave error. He was about to apologize when Ephrim’s clenched hand opened, spreading over Throndir’s chest. Ephrim tilted his face up towards Throndir. The realization finally hit: _Oh my god, Ephrim wants me to kiss him._ He leaned in slowly, still nervous, and kissed him softly on the lips.

And then outside, there was a huge crashing sound.

Throndir pulled back, startled, and then began to laugh. “Of course,” he muttered. “There’s always something.” He begrudgingly got up to go investigate the noise.

Ephrim’s eyes fluttered open. “Hey, no. You come back here.”

Throndir gestured out the window. “I should probably go find out what that was.”

“In a bit.” Ephrim grabbed him by the wrist. “I have been waiting for this for months. They can wait five minutes.” And before he could respond, Ephrim pulled him back onto the bed and kissed him, eager and wanting. It didn’t take long to thoroughly convince Throndir that five minutes wouldn’t hurt. He wrapped an arm around Ephrim’s waist, pulling him in closer and then up onto his lap. Ephrim’s hands ran through his hair. It was everything Throndir had been dying to do.

So naturally, there was a knock on his door. “Throndir?”

Ephrim sighed, rolling his eyes. Throndir shushed him and called back. “Hey, what’s up?”

“There was an accident at the underground garden and now all the medicine is mixed up. Could you come help sort it?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right down.”

“Sorry to bother you. I know this isn’t really your thing, but we couldn’t find Ephrim, so…”

Ephrim, still sitting on his lap, smirked. “You know what,” Throndir called, tracing his finger along Ephrim’s jawline, “I think I know where he is. Let me go find him and we’ll be right down.”

“Okay!” The person at the door walked away.

Throndir turned all of his attention back to Ephrim. “Months?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at him.

“You know, it sounded like they really need us down in the garden, we should probably go.”

“Months?” He asked again, leaning in for another kiss. How quickly something once forbidden could become so easy. “We could have been doing this for months?”

“Okay, I’m putting that on you,” Ephrim said, getting up. “I did everything I could, up to and including climbing in your bed.”

“Hey, I invited you into bed!

Now it was Ephrim’s turn to shush Throndir. “I’m gonna go get dressed, and then we can head down. And, uh…” He scratched the back of his neck, as if he was nervous. Did Throndir make Ephrim nervous? “And we can talk about this after?”

“Yeah, yeah, that sounds good.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Throndir knew he had the most ridiculous grin on his face, but he couldn’t stop it.

“I’m gonna go now.”

“Okay.” Throndir closed the door behind Ephrim as he left, and then slumped up against the wall. He took a deep breath, heart pounding.

“What the fuck just happened?” he whispered to himself. He started laughing- giddy, scared, and excited, all rolled up into one.

 

Of course, he had no idea, but down the hall, Ephrim leaned on his dresser, staring at himself in the mirror, having the same moment of nerves and disbelief and joy.

**Author's Note:**

> come @ me on twitter for naming fics after one direction songs in the year 2019! @angstcaffeine  
> (the song is called no control and its good i promise)


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